John Doe wrote:
:
:How long would it take to build one or two new shuttles from scratch ?
:Same core design, but with some of the improvements wanted by NASA (such
:as electric APUs).
:

Probably about a decade.

:
:Someone had mentioned that it would cost about 2 billion to build one.
perhaps another billion for the second shuttle ?).
:

Preposterously low numbers.

It cost almost $2 billion to build Endeavour at the time and it
started with a full spares set that were 'free'.

:
:This would allow NASA to implement many of the improvements to reduce
:costs, and retire the older shuttles instead of having them go through
:the recertification and major maintenance cycles needed after they've
:done ISS assembly.
:

How would it do that? One of the reason for retiring the Shuttle is
that the operating costs are so high.

:
:Would building new shuttles end up costing same ballpark as rebuilding
:the current ones ?
:

Define 'rebuilding'.

:
:They could keep one shuttle pad and maintain a few shuttle missions to
:LEO per year (to ISS' hubble etc).
:
:They could develop a re-entry capsule to be used as ISS espace pods
brought up by shuttles), and later scale those capsules up to be able
:to go to the moon on some new rocket.
:

'Scale up' means redesign.

:
:If NASA were to gear down to support only 2 or 3 shuttle flights per
:year, could it seriously lower its fixed costs on the ground ? I am
:thinking that if fast turnaround were no longer needed, wouldn't they
:require far fewer workers ? And with only 2 shuttles, wouldn't that free
:up some buildings used for shuttle maintenance ?
:

They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
no matter what your flight rate is.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn